Sphinx and the City – 360° Aerial Panoramas of the Giza Plateau

Anybody that visits the Great Sphinx and pyramids at the Giza Plateau is usually shocked at how close these ancient monuments are to the city of Cairo, which literally stops at the gate of the plateau. In ths shot above, we see the Great Sphinx standing guard as 15-million-plus people go about their business immediately to its east.

The photo is a screenshot taken from a fantastic series of panoramas of the plateau, freely available to browse on the internet, provided by AirPano.com. The embedded version is a little flaky, so here’s a direct link to the full page:

Make sure you full-screen the page for the full effect! For those with limited bandwidth, or who are viewing on mobile devices, you can choose other options “>at the entry page that I linked above.

There are some astounding views of various locations around the monuments of Giza – once you enter the panorama, which shows a fairly hazy view of the area around Khafre’s pyramid (the ‘2nd’ pyramid), you can then click on other locations to be taken to that view, including the Great Pyramid, the Sphinx, and the Sphinx/Valley Temples.

How did AirPano collect these amazing panorama images? Just like the aliens that built the Giza pyramids, they used UFOs (or possibly remote-controlled drone-copters) to fly a panoramic camera up to certain points above the plateau in order to get the best possible view of these jaw-dropping structures. Below is a short video feature showing the copters in action – wish they shared more video, because it’s a unique piece of footage when you fly up into the air from beside the Sphinx!

Enjoy! Just don’t complain to me when you finish checking it all out and half the day has disappeared…